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Mitt Romney's friends provide ammo to his critics

Mitt Romney’s team includes former policy advisers to George W. Bush. | AP Photos
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Romney aides don’t dispute that their candidate has relied on people with backgrounds shaded a bit greener than some in the party might prefer. But they insist he’s not changing his stance because of them.

“Like any serious leader, Gov. Romney takes counsel from a wide variety of perspectives before making his decisions,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. “Having heard from all sides on the issue of climate change, he is firmly opposed to a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax.”

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One of Romney’s top economic advisers is Mankiw, who helped come up with a jobs agenda with 59 specific policy proposals, including “multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with onerous new environmental regulations” and the “review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy.”

But not long ago, the Harvard economics professor was talking up a carbon tax in one of the most high-profile settings a policy wonk can get: The New York Times.

“In the debate over global climate change, there is a yawning gap that needs to be bridged,” Mankiw wrote in the September 2007 article with the headline “One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax.”

“The gap is not between environmentalists and industrialists, or between Democrats and Republicans. It is between policy wonks and political consultants,” Mankiw wrote. “Among policy wonks like me, there is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it. So if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax.”

Romney’s financial contributors also have green baggage, including Connaughton and Mistri.

Connaughton was one of the few Republicans willing to speak out publicly during the first two years of the Obama administration in support of carbon caps, even offering ideas for how the White House could get a bill through the narrowly divided Congress. His remarks were made as an executive vice president for Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, a power company with a large nuclear portfolio that would stand to benefit from carbon limits.

Jeff Holmstead, a former Bush-era EPA official who supports Romney, said he didn’t think the former Massachusetts governor should be that concerned about leaning on people who in the past have advocated for climate policies.

“Anyone who’s been active at all in the public policy world has probably talked about the desirability of a carbon tax or how you might structure cap and trade,” said Holmstead, now an industry attorney at Bracewell & Giuliani. “I just think it’s a stretch to connect their past interest or even support to those things with Romney.”

I hate that he is even asking Bush people for advice on anything. You mean to tell me that he search far and wide and could not come up with anyone other than Bush people to give him advice. People Mitt like to flip flop, well right about now it's a good habit to have. He should flip and flop on this right away and distance himself from Bush people. He should find his own people.

Rick Perry’s Texas is Ross Perot’s Mexico come north. Through a range of enticements we more commonly associate with Third World nations — low wages, no benefits, high rates of poverty, scant taxes, few regulations and generous corporate subsidies — the state has produced its own “giant sucking sound,” attracting businesses from other states to a place where workers come cheap. Consider the Texas that Perry holds up to the rest of the nation for admiration. It has the fourth-highest poverty rate of any state. It tied with Mississippi last year for the highest percentage of workers in minimum-wage jobs. It ranks first in adults without high school diplomas. Twenty-six percent of Texans have no health insurance — the highest percentage of medically uninsured residents of any state. It leads the nation in the percentage of children who lack medical insurance. Texas has an inordinate number of employers who provide no insurance to their workers, partly because insurance rates are high, thanks to an absence of regulations. PERRY NO GOOD, A Texas clown...

A panicked left wing POLITICO and mouthpiece for MSNBC prints another Romney bashathon that people see right through.

Hey libs, Romney is going to be the nominee..your worst nightmare.

I can't wait to see him mop the floor with a teleprompter-less obama in the presidential debates.

Romney will have the dear leader wearing his record of failures like a turd lei... gonna be hilarious !

I agree, Romeny will be the GOP nominee.. But if you think he can mop the floor with Obama you are sadly mistaken. Willard will find himself arguing against his own best judgement. That's the kind of twisting and turning that is wrought with all kinds of peril.

I am beginning to come around on Romney's side. The people calling him a "flip flopper" simply do not want him exposed to moderate points of view. Romney has all the qualities of a leader who is fully aware of the weight of his decisions.

Romney is also showing that he listens. The "flip flopping," for lack of a better term, shows that he is actually susceptible to the opinions of the people that he represents. He actually listens, unlike the political leaders of the last 8 years, who passed stimulus plans and cut back on financial regulation in spite of what the people actually wanted.

I think you people calling Mitt a flip flopper are just seizing on a sound bite without knowing the man's history. Either that or you are a hard right winger like Murdoch who just doesn't like Romney because he doesn't cheer at people who don't have health care dying.

A panicked left wing POLITICO and mouthpiece for MSNBC prints another Romney bashathon that people see right through.

Hey libs, Romney is going to be the nominee..your worst nightmare.

I can't wait to see him mop the floor with a teleprompter-less obama in the presidential debates.

Romney will have the dear leader wearing his record of failures like a turd lei... gonna be hilarious !

I agree, Romeny will be the GOP nominee.. But if you think he can mop the floor with Obama you are sadly mistaken. Willard will find himself arguing against his own best judgement. That's the kind of twisting and turning that is wrought with all kinds of peril.

I think what you're forgetting is that obama does not do well when he has to think on his feet. His command of the facts is abysmal. ( 57 states should have alerted you to that)

Without his teleprompters and a caned David Axelrod speech to read from them, he's in trouble.. In the debates , his trademark "Ah er Der Let me clear" and "make no mistake about it" psychobabble and platitudes aren't t going to cut it. He's actually got a record now of three years of failure and it ain't pretty.He's got no Bush to bash and the "Hopey changy "crap has been dispelled with his latest broken promise not to accept lobbyist money which he's taking hand over fist....some much for his "Change lie"

Romney is incredibly sharp and will be right in his face with the facts and figures of the obama disaster. He'll totally

expose an eminately unqualified Junior senator from Illinois whose only experience has been as a community organizer and never should have won the highest office on the planet in the first place. I have every reason to believe that America will at last get a good look at who is the most capable to lead America without his Adoring main stream media filtering the obvious.

Any ties to the Geo W. Bush Administration is a very bad idea. Romney must be very desperate to go the Bush, Cheney, Rove game. No doubt with the ties come tons of ca** for Romney but still there are a ton of conservatives that are a no go on Bush and still even more in a general election. This might end up a good move for Cain and Perry.

I'm a democrat. As long as Romney is not bringing in anything that smacks of Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, or the Wolfowitzes, then I will vote for him over Obama. The GOP needs to decide if it wants to beat Obama - or just beat their chests for another 4 years.

Any ties to the Geo W. Bush Administration is a very bad idea. Romney must be very desperate to go the Bush, Cheney, Rove game. No doubt with the ties come tons of ca** for Romney but still there are a ton of conservatives that are a no go on Bush and still even more no go's on Bush in a general election. This might end up a good move for Cain and Perry.

The amount of comments on this thread nicely epitomizes to amount of buzz Willard generates. It's been up for hours and there are sixteen comments. I wonder what his rallies will look like upon winning the nomination.